Donna Richardson’s Jazzman is back collecting ribbons in the Grand Prix ring after a four-year layoff following colic surgery and a suspensory ligament injury.

Last year he returned to the show ring with Richardson’s student Skyler Evans in the FEI Young Rider classes. And in February of this year, Richardson started competing him at Grand Prix.

At Dressage At DG Bar, May 11-13 in Hanford, Calif., they won the High Performance Grand Prix Special (67.00%) and were third in the Grand Prix (66.25%).

“He’s getting stronger and just more confirmed in the Grand Prix all the time,” said Richardson, who rode Jazzman on the 1999 gold-medal Pan Am Games team. “He always knew the movements, but now he’s beginning to develop the strength that he had years ago so that he can show the expression that I know is in there. Each time I take him out there he’s just a little bit stronger, and it’s just a little bit easier to get through the test.”

Richardson, of San Marcos, Calif., blamed herself for their low score in the Grand Prix. She let Jazzman advance too much in the piaffe and was determined not to do it again in the Special. This was the first Grand Prix Special test for the 15-year-old, Dutch Warmblood gelding since his return to the ring.

“I had forgotten how long that test is,” said Richardson with a laugh. “It goes on forever, and it keeps coming at you. By the time we got to
the last passage/piaffe tour down the center line I could feel him thinking, ‘Isn’t it over yet?’ “

Richardson, an emergency room doctor who is partially retired, is thrilled to have her partner back. “Mentally I wasn’t sure if he wanted to come back and do all that work again,” she said. “But he seems to like his job and really doesn’t have a problem with it. Hopefully, he can go on for another couple of years. He spent some of his best years resting in the pasture!”

Richardson purchased Jazzman (Amethist–Eronica) as a 3-year-old stallion, after only seeing him on a video tape sent from the Netherlands.

“I just like to take every day that he comes out and he’s sound and he’s happy,” said Richardson. “That’s a good day.”

Jeremy Steinberg en-dured the unusual heat and humidity of the weekend to win the High Performance Grand Prix (69.72%) and place second in the Grand Prix Special (64.33%) on Jennifer Smith’s 17-year-old, Wurttemberg gelding Parocco.

“I didn’t see any of the other rides in my class [on Thursday]; I just did my ride and went back to the barn and melted,” said Steinberg, who hails from Seattle, Wash.

“Parocco was great,” said Steinberg after their Grand Prix test. “He went in and just didn’t make a mistake. It was one of those days when he was ‘on’ and had enough energy and had a good test. He’s one of those horses that’s always pretty reliable in the test. He’s always going to do it–he never quits, he never says no. He just tries his heart out.”

This was the third show for the pair on their trip to California. They won the Grand Prix freestyle and placed second in the Grand Prix at the Golden State CDI. Then they placed fifth in both classes at the CDI in Del Mar.

“I think from Golden State to here I got more comfortable just doing so many shows on him,” said Steinberg. “I know where I could push him a little bit more and where I shouldn’t push quite so much. I think he gained a little bit of confidence too. Just the fact that I could relax a little bit and just trust that he wasn’t going to make mistakes. When I can relax he always goes better.”

Steinberg said he was uncharacteristically relaxed in their test on Thursday in the Grand Prix. “I just went in and was just laid back and relaxed about the test, which I’m normally not,” he said with a laugh. “I’m normally a nervous wreck. So I think he just picked up on that energy and relaxed and was really good.”

The judges commented that he looks pleasant and happy. “He wants to do it and he tries hard, and that comes out in his expression I think, even though he’s not a brilliant mover,” said Steinberg.

Less Is More
Teri Hallman made the 13-hour trip from Payson, Ariz., to win the High Performance Intermediaire I (70.25%) on her Hanoverian gelding Fontainebleau.

“I didn’t warm up much because it was so blooming hot,” said Hallman. “Basically I just tried to get him on the aids. If I keep running through the movements with him it wears him out. I just said to myself, ‘I’m going to get him in front of my leg and on the aids and ride down the centerline and see what happens.’ “

The last time Hallman scored a 70 percent Fontainebleau had pulled a shoe, and she only got a ten-minute warm-up. “I was panicking. I did a little walk-trot-canter then and I went down the centerline. So I’m thinking there might be something to this,” she said. “I’m thinking I maybe need to change my warm-up!”

Fontainebleau had some bobbles in the Prix St. Georges test and received scores ranging from 9s to 4s.

“He’s either really, really on or he’s really, really not on,” said Hallman. “We have to get a little better on the consistency. I went on a trail ride the day after my Prix St. Georges and thought about the test. We’re still learning things, we’re getting better, and we’re getting stronger. Dressage is a process, and I’m having a good time and doing the process. I love my horse, and I really enjoy riding my horse and that’s all that matters.”

Hallman went into the Intermediaire I with that attitude. “I think the trail ride helped,” she said. “We just needed to get away from the show environment.”

Fontainebleau (by Wanderer) stands 18 hands, and Hallman only weighs 120 pounds. She found him as a 3-year-old in Germany at Holga Finken’s barn.

“He was more money than I had, but I just fell in love with him,” said Hallman. “He’s well proportioned, so he doesn’t look that big, and he’s very light to ride. He’s very sensitive, almost too sensitive sometimes, and very sweet and very well mannered.”

Like Hallman, Tanya Vik, of San Rafael, Calif., didn’t know quite what to expect at DG Bar. She and her 10-year-old, Hanoverian gelding Divinity 3 competed at Del Mar (Calif.) two weeks ago and didn’t have the best of shows. And his training at home has not been going well either.

But the pair won the High Performance Prix St. Georges class (69.66%) in only his second show back after having surgery in January for a broken splint bone.

“I was a little surprised that he was as good as he was,” said Vik. “He’s sort of in that training phase where he’s learning to passage, and the half halts at the trot are getting a little messed up. If I half halt he wants to passage, so we have moments of ‘thanks for passaging but not now!’ I was sweating bullets that it wasn’t going to come together here.”

Vik said her horse loves to compete. “He’s a horse that loves to go out and do stuff,” she said. “His trot work here was some of the better trot work that he’s done in tests. He was able to carry a lot more fluidness than he sometimes does. Things have been feeling more solid and more together.”

Divinity 3 (Don Primero–Rhapsodie) placed second (68.58%) behind Fontainebleau in the Intermediaire I. Vik was a little late in asking for one of the changes in the two tempis.

Breanna Brings Fun
Kathleen Raine blew away the competition in the FEI 6-Year-Old Finale Test, winning (86.00%) on her new Hanoverian mare Breanna (by Brentano II). Breanna received a 9.4 on her trot, 8.8 on her walk, and 8.5 on her canter from judges Marilyn Payne and Heather Mason. She took off a little bit in the medium canter circle, so that brought her submission score down to 7.8.

“She was really good throughout the weekend,” said Raine. “She was just a little bit tense in the canter today, and the changes weren’t as good as they’ve been. But I was thrilled with her. She’s such a fun horse. She is the most comfortable horse I’ve ever sat on.”

Raine’s husband David Wightman found Breanna at the elite auction in Verden, Germany, in 2004 and purchased her in partnership with Jennifer Mason, of Orange, Calif. Raine took her to spectate at a few shows last year just to get her exposed to all the sights and sounds.

“I was showing her in the third level classes throughout the weekend, and she got a couple of 75s and a 77,” said Raine. “So that gave me some confidence for the 6-year-old class. I got to go in today and turn it up a little.”

Amanda Harlan won the FEI Young Rider Team test (67.77%), placed second by 0.42 percent in the Young Rider Prix St. Georges (67.33%) and placed third in the Young Rider Prix St. Georges freestyle (68.75%) with her new Dutch Warmblood gelding Liberte (Flemmingh–Evelina).

Harlan, of Oakville, Calif., purchased the 12-year-old gelding in January. Her trainer, Jan Ebeling, had shown Liberte to the USEF National Intermediaire Championship at Gladstone (N.J.) in 2002.

“He is the best horse ever,” said Harlan, 16. “It’s just a learning curve right now getting to know each other. I’m really excited. He has such a great heart and such a good work ethic.”

Harlan said she had some mistakes in the Prix St. Georges. “They were my fault, not his. That was a little bit frustrating on my part, but he was very good,” she said. “He did everything I asked him to do. Even the wrong things I asked him to do he did!”

Harlan has a new freestyle that she rode for the first time in competition. Terri Gallo put together the music, “Hill Street Blues,” and Ebeling worked with Harlan on the choreography.

“This was kind of a practice, and it did not go well at all,” said Harlan with a laugh. “I kind of forgot where I was supposed to go. Oh, well, we got the trial run out of the way!”

Liberte is in training with Ebeling in Moorpark, Calif., during the show season, and Harlan commutes to Moorpark every other weekend. During the week she rides her Friesian gelding Onyx, with whom she competed with in the Young Rider classes last year. “I’m so fortunate with my family’s support and Jan and my friends,” said Harlan.